Instant Family

Year 12, Day 357 - 12/22/20 - Movie #3,698

BEFORE: Yes, I skipped another day yesterday, because I decided I wanted to finish off Season 2 of "Happy" on Netflix.  That's one more thing crossed off the list, and I had momentum, if I didn't watch those last three episodes last night then I'd have to wait for next week, and I'd lose track of the VERY weird plot.  I can sort of see why this show got cancelled after just two seasons, maybe just a few too many weird elements once they got into dead characters coming back to life, alien Teletubbies and weird latex sex orgies.  Anyway, only Season 1 was Christmas-themed, in Season 2 they did a whole Easter thing, and I'm betting they would have gone in a Halloween direction if the show continued.  Hey, some channel could probably resurrect it, the creators are probably still pitching it somewhere. 

But now I've got to get back on Christmas - I don't THINK this counts as a Christmas film, but I never really know for sure.  I only know it gets me to my last two films, which are Christmas-themed.  Octavia Spencer carries over from "Bad Santa 2".  

THE PLOT: A couple find themselves in over their heads when they foster three children. 

AFTER: The first good news here is that this CAN count as a Christmas film - the lead characters are a couple who decide to become foster parents to three Hispanic children, and that decision happens around Thanksgiving, so by the time the kids are in their house, it's close to Christmas time.  They end up buying too many presents for the kids, only to find the kids having more fun playing with the cardboard boxes the presents came in.  Umm, I think the screenwriter here was confusing kids with cats.  Do kids play with empty boxes?  I'm just not sure...

Let's face it, in many ways I'm just not qualified to comment on a film that's about parents having kids, whether those kids are biological, adopted, foster parents or whatever.  I've never been involved first-hand in any of those processes, so the whole concept is alien to me.  (I'm probably more qualified to review a film about aliens than kids.). But speaking of aliens, the other kind, this film ended up getting portrayed in some circles as pro-Trump propaganda, when it really isn't.  But perhaps it got released around the time that Trump's policies were separating immigrant children from their parents, and putting them in camps.  (Hey, how did that whole kerfuffle turn out?  Oh, yeah, not good.). Maybe I can see how pro-Trumpers fell for this film, because it suggests that the white, middle-class foster parents are much better equipped to raise these three kids than their biological, drug-using mother who has no idea who the kids' father is. (or are there several fathers?)

Taken another way, this film also possibly reads like propaganda for the whole foster care / adoption system, because it takes the time to highlight the perils and struggles of both the kids stuck in the system, and the challenges that lie ahead for any foster parents willing and able to take in troubled kids and teens.  They've got hang-ups, phobias, low self-esteem and tend to act out (umm, remind me, what's the upside again?) because the people who raised them may have abandoned them, or been unable to get their own selves together to act as proper parents, even failing again and again along the way.  But if you've never raised kids, perhaps this film also serves as a warning sign, or even a confirmation of your own life choices to not put yourself in a position where you're responsible for taking care of another human.  Really, the movie's like a mirror, therefore, and you may see what you want or need within it.  

I may have some issues with the lead characters, who flip houses for a living, and rather than have a child of their own, decided to approach starting a family with the same approach.  They essentially looked at foster care as some kind of shortcut, the kids were essentially like an abandoned house, a "fixer-upper" that they could buy, renovate, and turn into something more valuable.  Yeah, that doesn't seem like a very good approach to child-rearing - were they going to flip the kids and turn a profit?  That doesn't even make any sense.  But late in the film, when the quality of their foster care is called into question, the couple writes a legal statement that says that "They didn't know what was missing in their lives until they became foster parents".  Umm, OK, but then why DID they do it, at the time they did it?  

Upon further reflection, the husband, Pete, seems like the more rational one.  Too many times he fell into the "good cop" role when the kids needed discipline, but, hey, somebody's got to be the good cop.  The wife, Ellie, is a much more questionable character.  The opening scenes of the film suggest that she's got a rivalry going with her sister, but that's not a good enough reason to foster kids in need, just to be a "better" person than her sister.  Then, at Thanksgiving, when their family members express relief that Pete and Ellie are NOT going to be foster parents, the couple does a 180 and fosters the kids anyway, out of spite.  That's not a good enough motivation either.  We then gradually learn that Ellie is very rigid, not very forgiving, and views the relationship with the kids as a battle that needs to be won.  It takes a literal slap in the face for her to change and realize she's doing it wrong, but what if by that point the damage is already done?  

Very cagily, they put in examples of "worse" foster parents, so that we'd see how great Pete and Ellie are, by comparison.  There's even one woman who wants to be a single mother to an unwanted black child, preferably a large one with a potential football career, because she wants to re-create the movie "The Blind Side" - though she denies having seen "The Blind Side", this is clearly what she's doing.  Yeah, that's not going to work, because hating that woman doesn't make me like Ellie any better, because they can both be horrible people.  Nice try, though.  The scene where Juan says "Good night, Mommy" to Ellie, and then even though he's fallen asleep, she keeps trying to wake him up, just so she can hear him say it again.  This really drives home the point that she's only interested in being a mother for the ego boost that it gives her, which seems extremely selfish.  

I'm left to conclude that the foster care or adoption systems are not for everybody, I would support anyone who takes that leap, provided that there is a period of introspection first, to make sure that they feel both capable and that they are doing this for the right reasons.  Fostering a kid to feel better about yourself is not a recommended move, especially when you consider the potential those parents have to let down the kids after the kids prove to be more than they can handle.  But I do appreciate that this movie doesn't sugar-coat the whole process, which is one reason why I'm going to kind of give it a pass.  Plus, it is the season of giving, and it feels like this film meant well, even if it didn't quite deliver a coherent message in a clear way.  

There were also too many characters in Ellie's family, I couldn't keep them all straight, and many of them seemed like they were given no reason to be there.  Time to eliminate some characters.  Plus, her parents were played by the (formerly) young female star of "Airplane" and the (formerly) young male lead from "Caddyshack".  That just makes a movie fan feel old, when those actors are playing grandparents!

Also starring Mark Wahlberg (last seen in "The Gambler"), Rose Byrne (last seen in "I Love You, Daddy"), Isabela Moner (last heard in "The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature"), Tig Notaro (last seen in "Lucy in the Sky"), Margo Martindale (last seen in "Proof of Life"), Julie Hagerty (last seen in "Marriage Story"), Michael O'Keefe (last seen in "Eye in the Sky"), Tom Segura, Gustavo Escobar, Julianna Gamiz, Allyn Rachel (last seen in "Kong: Skull Island"), Charlie McDermott (last seen in "Hot Tub Time Machine"), Valente Rodriguez (last seen in "The New Guy"), Carson Holmes, Nicholas Logan, Joselin Reyes, Eve Harlow, Iliza Shlesinger, Andrea Anders (last seen in "Daddy's Home 2"), Gary Weeks (last seen in "The 15:17 to Paris"), Joan Cusack, Brittney Rentschler, Jody Thompson, Joy Jacobson (last seen in "Boy Erased"), Hampton Fluker (last seen in "The Blind Side"), Randy Havens (last seen in "Richard Jewell"), Kenneth Israel (last seen in "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"), Rosemary Dominguez, Javier Ronceros, Erika Bierman (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1"), Layla Felder, John McConnell, Maureen Brennan (last seen in "I Love You Phillip Morris"), Andrene Ward-Hammond (last seen in "Just Mercy").

RATING: 5 out of 10 teddy bears from court appearances